Writing is Like Driving a Standard
To drive a standard is to be in tune with one’s automobile. It’s to recognize when it’s time to shift, up or down. It’s to know when to put the vehicle in neutral or when to stay in motion, fluctuating between the brake and gas pedals.
Why I Studied Poetry
I could name a number of reasons for why I chose to study poetry in graduate school. I could say I was lost, and it would be true. I didn’t know what to do after some job opportunities closed during my final semester as an undergraduate. Where was I to go? What work was I to do? Such questions haunted me. They found some alleviation in the suggestion from my college mentor: apply for graduate school.
Quality, Quantity, and the Sixty Hour Work Week
A past co-worker once asked whether I took work home with me. I told him no. He seemed flabbergasted. For him, taking work home was a sign of dedication and productivity. I didn’t agree. Taking work home with me indicated an inability to order my life in a healthy way and asked what I did with the hours I had available during the day. I know work sometimes extends past usual business hours, but if I arrange my work and prioritize tasks in a way that works for me, it shouldn’t have to follow me home very often.
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Find and Protect the Productive Zone
Everyone has a productive zone, i.e., a time in which they prefer to work. They may not recognize it as such, but they have one. It’s that time of the day where ideas start to come together. It’s when the ideas are flowing faster than the person can write them.
Revisited: Why I Write
I am a worrier. I worry about real things, such as bills and projects and deadlines and health. I worry whether I come across as self-centered or self-pitying. I worry that I am those things. I worry about how not to be those things. I worry a lot.